In traditional page-layout and illustration programs, a master page is a component that allows a user to have a common background or foreground, or other common elements on multiple pages. With existing implementations, a user creates a master page having one or more elements and when child pages are created based on the master page, all those master page elements appear in one layer, in the “Z”-ordering or depth of the drawing context, generally in the background of the illustration. In the prior art, the order in which the elements are rendered is relatively inflexible. Typically, the master page elements are rendered first, and on top of those master page elements, all the child elements are rendered. Problematically, the prior art fails to allow interleaving of child page elements and master page elements. In the prior art, master pages have layers, but these master page layers are typically independent of the child page layers and the two sets of layers do not interrelate nor may they be interleaved. So, in the prior art all master page elements, regardless of the layer of the master page on which they are disposed, typically appear underneath all of the child page layers and the child page layers' elements. Therefore, when using prior art page-layout programs it is not possible to create a child page where master page elements appear in different levels of the drawing context.
Another problem in the prior art is an inability for master page elements to affect the rendering of a child page element by applying some effect to a child page element. Traditional prior art master pages fail to allow the creation of some complicated illustrations. Additionally, prior art programs typically will not allow a user to have multiple master pages associated with a child page. With a traditional rendering master page, each master page element is rendered prior to the child elements. Therefore, even if multiple master pages were employed, it would appear as if only one master page is underneath the child pages.